                HART - the Hardware Access in Real Time Toolbox for Scilab/Scicos
                =============================================
                                version 0.4.x
                                =============

Holger Nahrstaedt (nahrstaedt@control.tu-berlin.de)

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0 - COPYRIGHT NOTICE
====================

  HART, the Hardware Access in Real Time Toolbox for Scilab/Scicos, is free software released under
  the terms of the GNU  General Public License.

  See the included license: "license.txt" in English.

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I - WHAT'S NEW IN RELEASE 0.x.0?
===============================

See the included changelog: "CHANGELOG" in English.

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II - INSTALL THE HART TOOLBOX FOR SCILAB/SCICOS
===================================================

  The requirements for installing HART from source code are the following:

    a - Scilab.

      The new version of HART  runs with Scilab 4.1.2, scicoslab 4.4b7 or Scilab 5.3-beta4. Your Scilab can be
      both a stable version (source, binary file). You will find scilab on http://www.scilab.org

    b - C Compiler.

      The source version of HART contains several .c and .cpp files (see the section:
      "VI - TOOLBOX COMPOSITION", below) that must be compiled as a shared
      library.

      The most widely used compiler is GCC.

  The 3 steps that follow must be performed when you only have to install the
  toolbox (i.e. one time only). If you already have installed the toolbox, skip
  to the next section: "III - LOAD THE HART TOOLBOX FOR SCILAB/SCICOS".

    1 - Unpack the file hart-0.x.x-src.tar.gz.

      The file can be unpacked in a directory of your own choice, provided that
      the path to this directory does not contain any spaces.

      You will get a folder called hart-x.x.x, but you can give the folder any name
      (of course, the name must not contain any spaces).

      From now on, the path to the robot directory will be referred to as
      <PATH>.

    2 - Build HART.

      Open the Scilab prompt and type the following commands:

                        exec <PATH>/prepare_toolbox.sce;
                        exec <PATH>/builder.sce;

      This will compile HART on your machine. It is also possible to use the Makefile (You have to set your scilab version in the Makefile!):
			cd <PATH>; make
			

  3 - Install RTAI-Lab
	
      If RTAI is installed on your PC, you can use Scicos and HART to generate C-Code 
      which runs under hard real time. Take a look on rtai page: http://rtai.org. 


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III - LOAD THE HART TOOLBOX FOR SCILAB/SCICOS (XCOS)
=================================================

  Open the Scilab prompt and type the following command:

                        exec <PATH>/loader.sce;

  This will load the toolbox into Scilab. You must type this command in every
  Scilab session that you want to use the toolbox.

  You can generate a link in SCI/contrib to hart. Then a new toolbox menu is generated and hart can be loaded be clicking on it:
	cd <path to scilab>/contrib;
	ln -s <PATH to HART> hart


  Note that, as the final user, you may want HART to be loaded automatically. To
  do this just put the above command in your SCI/scilab.star startup file for
  automatic loading.


  As an example, below is the sequence you could do on your own machine for
  automatic loading:

    1 - open SCI/scilab.star file with your favorite text editor.

    2 - Add the following line at the end of SCI/scilab.star:

                        exec <PATH>/loader.sce;

    4 - save the SCI/scilab.star file.

  That's it! Every time you enter scilab it already loads HART and even if you
  run the clear command you won't have to reload the toolbox anymore.

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IV - REMARKS
============


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V - DOCUMENTATION
=================

  Detailed HTML help documentation, written in English language is provided for
  each Scilab function and Scicos block in the toolbox. Every help page is
  enriched with many examples which illustrate the usage of the corresponding
  Scilab function or Scicos block.

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VI - TOOLBOX COMPOSITION
========================

  The root directory contains 8 sub-directories which are generated from prepare_toolbox.sce. Each change in this directories will be
  lost, if you execute again prepare_toolbox.sce or do a make.

   1 - etc/
	contains the starter script HART.start. This file is executed from loader.sce
   2 - includes
	some c/c++-header files
   3 - macros
	macros for compiling and loading the toolbox
        sci-files for all blocks
   4 - src
	c/c++ files of all scicos/xcos-blocks which will be build into a library.
   5 - demos
        some cos/xcos files, which demonstrate the use of the hart-toolbox
   6 - help
        help files
   7 - lib
       compiled library from the source-code in the src - directory
   8 - RT_templates
       templates for Codegeneration

  There are also 3 Permanent directories:
   1 - modules
        modules-directory. The content of each module will copied and included into the HART-toolbox, if you execute prepare_toolbox.sce
   2 - hart_src
        source code of the HART-toolbox
   3 - template_for_module
        can be used as template for a new module. copy the directory your_name to modules and rename the directory.


  and 4 files:

    1 - builder.sce

      The main builder script. Will be generated from  prepare_toolbox.sce

    2 - loader.sce

      The main loader script. Will be generated from  prepare_toolbox.sce

    3 - README_Unix

      This file. Notes about toolbox description and installation.

    4 - license.txt

      The text of the GNU General Public License Version 2, under which the
      toolbox is distributed.

   5 - CHANGELOG
      
      Containts all changes

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